


just like magnets do

by carryokee



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, clearing out my old files, former players, retired players
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21908179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryokee/pseuds/carryokee
Summary: Kerry tells Kurt he's thinking about retirement.
Relationships: Kurt Warner/Kerry Collins
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	just like magnets do

**Author's Note:**

> This may very well be the only Kurt Warner/Kerry Collins fic in existence.
> 
> Originally posted on Livejournal in November 2009.

It’s nearly 2AM when Kurt slides the key into the lock and steps quietly into the dark apartment. As he closes the door behind him and slides the deadbolt into place, he yawns.

He almost didn’t come. His plane had been late taking off due to weather and by the time they landed, it was already after midnight. But it had been weeks of nothing but phone calls and text messages, and not taking advantage of this opportunity was simply not an option.

So here he is.

He peels off his coat as he walks into the living room, throwing it over the back of the sofa as he drops his keys with a muted clang onto the end table.

It’s a small place. ‘Cozy’ is the word he always thinks of when he’s here. Another one is ‘secret’. Another one is ‘home,’ though, technically, his official home is several states away.

The kitchen is off to his left as he makes his way to the apartment’s only bedroom and he wonders briefly if there’s anything to eat. It’s been hours since his last meal and his stomach suddenly growls at the mere idea of food.

But he ignores it and just keeps walking. Because there’s someone he’s been dying to see.

*

Kerry is asleep. Kurt smiles because he can picture the gradual progression in his mind: Sports Center on mute in the background as Kerry reads some thick biography about some ancient war hero, cell phone on the bed beside him. Waiting. Waiting for him. Until his eyelids get so heavy, he just can’t keep them open anymore.

“Old man,” Kurt mutters fondly through his smile.

He undresses, leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor, grinning because he knows just how much that’ll annoy the sleeping neat freak in the morning.

Kerry stirs when Kurt lifts the covers and slides in beside him, but he doesn’t wake up. The sheets are soft and cool and Kurt nearly laughs out loud when his knee bumps into something small and square, because he knows what it is: Kerry’s cell phone.

Every time. The man falls asleep with it in the bed every time. Or nearly every time, Kurt thinks sheepishly.

Setting it on the bedside table, Kurt settles in. The pillowcase smells like the allergen-free fabric softener Kerry’s taken to using and he buries his nose in it, smiling. He teases Kerry about his domestic goddess skills and always tells him what a great wife he’ll make someone someday, but the truth is, he loves it. He appreciates all those little things: his favorite brand of beer in the fridge, fresh coffee in the morning, clean sheets on the bed.

But most of all, he appreciates the shape of Kerry beneath the blankets next to him. The warmth of him. The sound of his breath and the smell of his skin.

Yeah. He’s a girl. So sue him.

He stares at the back of Kerry’s head, the need to touch him prickling beneath his skin. But it’s late and he’s tired and they’ll have plenty of time for more than sleeping later. So he presses a light kiss to the curve of Kerry’s shoulder, settles in, and closes his eyes.

*

Kurt wakes to find Kerry looking at him in the gauzy gray light of almost-dawn. They share a smile.

“Hey.”

Kurt blinks against the word and the way the sleepy rasp of Kerry’s voice curls up inside his chest and settles there. He never gets tired of it. It’s a sound that may not be reserved exclusively for him, but few enough get to hear it that it still seems special.

“What time is it?” Kurt asks sleepily.

“Early enough to go back to sleep for a few more hours,” Kerry says, smiling. It’s the crooked one that never fails to elicit a mirrored response from Kurt.

“Season’s over, man,” Kurt says. “For us, at least. Any time is early enough to sleep for a few more hours.”

Kerry’s smile falters, then disappears, and he shifts under the blankets, sliding his toes between Kurt’s feet. He doesn’t say anything.

“What is it?” Kurt scoots closer to him.

Kerry looks at him across the space and Kurt can hear Kerry’s fingers close in the sheets between them. He reaches for Kerry’s hand and feels it clenched into a fist against his palm.

“Kerry—”

“I think I’m gonna retire. Just buy out my contract and quit.” The words are spoken quickly, like they hurt. They probably do.

Kurt’s fingers close around Kerry’s fist, but he doesn’t speak. He just moves closer until he can feel Kerry’s body heat against his skin. Kerry turns his fist beneath Kurt’s hand and opens it, lacing their fingers together.

“I spent most of the season riding the bench,” he says. “Watching Vince play better than me.” He closes his eyes and keeps them closed and Kurt knows he’s watching the last season replay behind his eyelids. Kurt knows exactly what that feels like: the endless looping, the second-guessing, the Monday morning quarterbacking.

“Give it some time,” Kurt says. “Think it over. The season’s only been over a week.”

Kerry smiles again, sadly. “For you, maybe.” He pushes his foot farther between Kurt’s, hooking his heel around Kurt’s ankle. “For me, it’s been over since Week 5.”

Kurt can see the sadness begin to settle behind Kerry’s eyes, his eyes going even darker in the early morning light, and he doesn’t want to see it. It’s been weeks since they’ve seen each other, weeks of traveling and working out and fielding endless questions about things the questioners couldn’t possibly understand unless they spent just one hour in his or Kerry’s cleats. All he wants is to forget about football for a little while. 

“Come on, man. You can’t retire. You’re younger than me,” he says, trying to pull Kerry from his funk. He wants to see him smile, wants to see the way his lips slowly curve up and the way his eyes crinkle at the corners.

He gets the response he wants—Kerry rewards him with that smile—and he feels himself grin back. And while he doesn’t think he’ll ever say it out loud, he can’t help but think for the billionth time that Kerry’s so damn beautiful when he smiles.

Kerry pulls his hand from Kurt’s grasp and pokes him in the stomach. “That’s right, old man. And don’t forget it.” His fingers splay across Kurt’s skin, then dig in. “Do I feel the beginnings of a middle-aged spread?” He digs his fingers in again, making Kurt squirm. A devilish grin creeps across his face.

Kurt grips Kerry’s shoulder and shoves him, forcing him flat on his back and pressing him into the bed. Kerry goes without a fight and looks up at him from the pillow, still grinning. He’s taller and heavier than Kurt, but he likes to be handled. And Kurt loves it when Kerry’s so pliable beneath his hands. He always has. Since the beginning.

This thing between them, it’s been going on for years. They met in ’98. Kerry was in his last year with the Panthers, mired in bad publicity, his young career on the verge of extinction when Carolina placed him on waivers. Kurt was in his first year with the Rams, riding the bench as the third string QB since three years of arena football and a year of NFL Europe counted as no experience at all. An acquaintance of a friend introduced them. They talked. Kerry drank too much and Kurt paid for the cab that drove Kerry back to his hotel. That was that.

By the time their teams met that year, Kerry was gone, picked up by New Orleans.

Over the next few years, they were in each other’s orbits. Kurt took the Rams to Super Bowl XXXIV and won; Kerry took the Giants to Super Bowl XXXV and lost. Kurt’s star rose as Kerry’s struggled to keep from crashing. But he was sober, at least—a bigger victory than any football championship, and hard-won at that.

Then came 2004 and the New York Giants. Kerry was out, Kurt was in. And surprisingly, that’s when it started between them.

It happened one night. Yeah, just like that—despite the fact that Kurt was on one coast and Kerry was on another. The space-time continuum is different in the NFL. Three thousand miles can be reduced to nothing in a weekend. Proximity is defined by the next opponent on the schedule or the next mandated league event, and despite the fact that the Giants and Raiders didn’t play each other that year, the two men still found themselves thrown together for an NFL charities promo party midway through the season.

By then, Kurt had lost his starting job to Eli Manning and Kerry couldn’t resist ragging on him about it. “Welcome to life in New York,” he quipped as he sipped carefully at his Sprite and resolutely did not look at the trays of booze floating around the room.

Kurt, with a surge of fraternal loyalty, stopped after one beer and switched to plain Coke in solidarity. Kerry just eyed him, eyes sparkling, but didn’t say anything. That was the first time Kurt saw the little half-smile, dripping with hidden knowledge as it curved Kerry’s lips.

They went to bed together for the first time that night. Stone cold sober and fully aware. And with surprisingly little morning after awkwardness.

That was five years ago. Going on six. They’ve never looked back.

Kurt grins down at Kerry and meets his eyes. The sun is slowly rising outside, the red-gold light filtering through the curtains and casting the room in an auburn glow. Kerry’s skin looks like burnished gold, Kurt thinks, and nearly rolls his eyes at the classic Hallmark cheese of it.

Kerry’s breathing through his mouth and his breath is warm and sleep-sour against Kurt’s face. But Kurt doesn’t turn away because this is Kerry and it’s been too long and it doesn’t matter anyway. He feels Kerry’s hands on his skin then, skimming across his ribs, fingers slotting into the spaces between them. 

Then Kerry’s knees come up and he kicks the covers away. And Kurt knows exactly what Kerry wants.

*

The sheets are dirty again.

Kurt follows the slow revolution of the ceiling fan blades until his eyes begin to cross. Kerry’s beside him, breathing evenly. Both of them are hovering in that half-conscious state before sleep comes, not touching except for the backs of their hands on the bed between them.

He likes it here, in this space. Likes the smell of the air and the hum of the A/C kicking on. He likes the way the cool air settles on his sweaty skin and the feel of the soft sheets against his bare back.

He likes looking over and seeing Kerry there, profile pointed towards the ceiling and eyes half-closed, a drowsy little smile curving his lips when he notices Kurt looking at him.

“I think I might move here,” Kerry says, the words directed towards the ceiling.

“You already live here, dumbass,” Kurt says. He knows what Kerry means, but it’s a thing with them.

Kerry hazards a look in Kurt’s direction. “Not the city, asshole. This apartment.” He looks around the room. “I like it.”

On the surface, it seems silly for Kerry to keep two apartments in the same city, but when this thing between them began to take on the trappings of something more serious, Kerry suddenly became interested in real estate.

“For us,” he said quietly when he showed it to Kurt back in ’06. “And no one else.” It was hard for Kerry to say those words, Kurt knew. Too many times Kerry had said too much and had been punished for his honesty. So Kurt knew the cost and valued them accordingly.

It was less than five miles from Kerry’s other apartment, hidden away in a nondescript building next to a city park. Kurt insisted on paying for half of it. They rarely had the chance to use it—only for a couple weeks during the off-season when neither of them was busy or those rare times when the Cards played the Titans in Tennessee. But they kept it because it was important. Here is where it mattered.

Kurt smiles. “Yeah?”

Kerry meets his eyes. There’s the smile again. “Why not? I might even clear a spot on the mantel for your MVP trophy.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “That would mean relocating your Precious Moments collection.”

Kerry shoves him in the shoulder. “Eat me.”

Kurt laughs. It feels good. “Wait,” he says. “We don’t have a mantel.”

Kerry shrugs. “So what? I’ll build one.”

Kurt tweaks an eyebrow at him. “You? Build one?”

Propping himself up on one elbow, Kerry gives him a look. “What? I’m good with my hands.”

Holding his gaze, Kurt savors the warm feeling building in his belly as he tucks his hands behind his head. He smiles. “Well,” he says, “no argument there.”

Kerry proceeds to prove it anyway.

*

It’s almost ten when Kurt wakes up again, this time to the smell of coffee. He smiles into the pillow and burrows further beneath the blanket. He doesn’t really want to sleep any longer, but he doesn’t want to get up, either. Coffee can wait.

Minutes pass; he doesn’t know how many. He’s hovering again in that realm of almost-sleep when the voice of God or Reason cuts through his brain.

“Get your ass out of bed before I roll you up in the sheets and drag you bare-assed down to the laundry room.”

“Kinky,” Kurt quips from inside his cotton cocoon. When he peeks out from beneath the blanket, he sees Kerry leaning in the doorway, his hand curled around the handle of a Penn State coffee mug, smirk firmly in place beneath his nose.

“And pick your damn clothes up before I burn them. I’m not your fucking maid.” He’s smiling, though, when he says it.

Kurt stretches languorously before standing up, dragging the blanket with him and wrapping it around his body like a toga. “You’re a real bitch in the morning, you know that?” He picks up his pile of clothes and tosses them into the chair, hearing Kerry snort behind him.

“And you were obviously born in a barn,” Kerry says. “Princess.”

Kurt walks over to where Kerry’s standing in the doorway and inhales the coffee-scented steam dramatically. Then with his free hand, he tips the cup to his lips and takes a sip, savoring the taste. Swallowing, he leans in and presses his lips to Kerry’s. “Just call me ‘Your Majesty’.” He nips at Kerry’s mouth, taking his bottom lip between his teeth, then smoothing the tip of his tongue along the curve of it. Then he pulls back, smiling as he meets Kerry’s dark eyes. The steam from the coffee shimmers between them. “Oh, that’s right,” he says softly. “You already do. Over and over again.”

Then he grabs the mug from Kerry’s suddenly slack fingers and disappears into the bathroom, chuckling.

The End


End file.
